Certification - October 2008 - (Page 24)

With the 2008 presidential election just around the corner, the state’s IT staff has been working at full speed since January, making changes, collecting candidate names, running tests and synchronizing the systems. When the polls close on Election Day, the optical scan machine results are brought to each county seat, and the counties can enter them either manually or electronically into the state’s election reporting system. Then the public can begin viewing the results. During the course of the night, there’s nothing quite like the climate in the IT department: It’s a mixture of optimism, anxiety, excitement, frustration and, ultimately, exhaustion, Lautzenheiser said. “As far as the environment, it’s optimistic and quiet around 8 o’clock as we unlock the system,” he said. “Then we’re anxious to see the results [come] in, just so we know all the processes of the system are working. As the first couple counties’ data comes in, we watch carefully to make sure there are no issues with the files being processed and loaded on the system. “From about 9 o’clock to midnight, there are many counties on the system, and the amount of activity increases rapidly. There are definitely issues that can arise, so we’ve got many monitors set up [and] we’re looking for anomalies.” Being involved in the development of IT tools that improve the electoral process is an exciting field and it will only become more so in the future, as states and organizations begin experimenting with the prospects and potential of online voting. “Today, if I go to my Polling Place Finder, I can see my entire ballot. That begs the question, how come I can’t vote online?” Lautzenheiser said. “It’s not a question of if; it’s more a question of when. [But] although [it’s] becoming more and more technically feasible, there are still many social, political, legal, financial and security hurdles to voting online.” His views, however, are not supported by Minnesota laws or the Office of the Secretary of State. E-Voting: Secure or Not? Because of the infamous hanging chads in the 2000 presidential election and the resulting uncertainty of voter intentions, electronic voting (e-voting) entered the scene. “In 2000, you were dealing with paper ballots,” said David Beirne, executive director of the Election Technology Council, a trade association that represents the voting system platforms for 90 percent of the registered voters in the United States. “Anytime you inject that type of item, it’s not a series of ones and zeroes or binary codes: It’s subject to interpretation. Electronic voting systems were pretty much the natural evolution for eliminating questions about voter intent.” “That power to drill down quickly to get the key connection — in our case, the key connection between money and politics — will revolutionize democracy by putting more information in the hands of people.” – Daniel Newman, Executive Director and Co-Founder, MAPLight.org 2 CERTIFICATION MAGAZINE October 2008 http://www.electiontech.org/ http://www.electiontech.org/ http://www.MAPLight.org

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Certification - October 2008

Certification - October 2008 Editor's Letter Contents Data Stream Virtual Village Tech Careers Dear Techie Troubleshooting Academic Connection What We Like Look Ahead Elect IT: Technology and the Democratic Process Managing Relationships in the Nonprofit Realm Interface VoIP Technician: Answering the Call of the Network Inside Certification Ad Index Endtag

Certification - October 2008

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